Category: Cruise

Mar
09
Day -1
TJ No Comments

The day before the cruise, my wife’s 40th birthday, we made the uneventful 8-hour drive to New Orleans. There was a marathon in town, selling out a lot of the places offering a cruise parking package. We decided on a 2-bedroom unit at TownePlace Suites New Orleans Metairie for $189 a night. We’ve traveled plenty of times with the boys, and while a single room works, we get much better sleep with a door between the two of us. Thanks to a leisurely start from Arkansas, we arrived at the hotel around 6:30 pm. The front desk clerk frowned at […]

Mar
09
Carnival Conquest 2/24/13 Western Caribbean Review and Pictures
TJ No Comments

After a 2+-year hiatus, I’m returning to my blog to document our recent cruise to the Caribbean. Last night was a trip down memory lane as I read every post of this blog from beginning to end. It’s neat to see all the cool things I’d mostly forgotten. It’s also sad to realize all the major events that were barely documented if at all: our 1st cruise (2 years before I started this blog), our trips to London, Lanzarote, Melilla and our Alaska cruise are some of the things barely mentioned here. We used to keep a separate website for […]

Jul
07
Venice-Barcelona-Home
TJ No Comments

After returning to the airport on the Alilaguna water bus, we’re taking AlpiEagles again to Barcelona. This time instead of paying the €149 price listed on the website, we were able to get a flight pass from EuropebyAir for $99, plus whatever airport taxes we’ll need to pay on the spot in Venice. The flight arrives in Barcelona at 13:15, and then we have a few hours to wait for the trip back to Alicante. We may take advantage of the time to try out the Barcelona public transportation and see if it can take us anywhere cool during the […]

Jul
07
Hotel American
TJ No Comments

Yeah I know, what a cop-out, right? According to the reviews I’ve read, the Hotel American is 100% Italian. From what I’ve seen it looks like a great place, and we splurged a little (as if we’re not spending enough already on this trip). A double room with a view of the canal will run us €190 a night, with a 5% discount if we pay in cash. I’ve heard many good things about the American including that it has a free internet terminal in the lobby, so you may get some updates from there. Then again, I may handwrite […]

Jul
07
Venice Airport – Hotel
TJ No Comments

After searching in vain for some sort of free shuttle from the airport to the hotel, I stumbled across Alilaguna, a company that operates a water bus from the airport to the city. According to the website, it will take us about an hour and twenty minutes to get to our stop, Zattere, and will cost €10 each way. We’re also planning on taking this back to the airport if it works out ok, so no separate entry for that leg.

Jul
07
Athens-Venice
TJ No Comments

Like I mentioned, we couldn’t do the flight pass, but we did get a fairly good deal through AlpiEagles. We’re flying directly from Athens to Venice for €149 each, as opposed to the next lowest on Alitalia which was over €500 per person with a connection in Milano. The crazy thing is that I found AlpiEagles the same day as EuropebyAir. On that day the fare was €99 (about $115), so I decided to wait to buy the $99 flight pass. 2 days later when I found out the pass wasn’t available, the fare had jumped to €149. Nothing like […]

Jul
07
Another brief interlude…
TJ No Comments

Before moving on I wanted to mention I site I found called EuropebyAir. With it US citizens can buy a $99 “flight pass” that will allow you to go between any two eligible cities. Although Ellen and I are US citizens and have a US mailing address, they wouldn’t let us order a flight pass because we are physically out of the country. They did, however, let Joelle buy them for us in our names, and she’ll be bringing them when she comes over. The flight pass wasn’t available for the day we need to leave Athens, but we did […]

Jul
07
Divani Carvel Hotel
TJ No Comments

Once again we decided to stay in the same hotel as our family after the cruise, especially since they will be in Athens 2 nights. We will be at the Divani Caravel Hotel, which seems to be a fairly nice hotel athough a little ways away from the main Plaka area. Discount hotel companies don’t seem to do too much business with the Caravel because every place we found showed the same price as the hotel website. We wound up booking through Travelocity. They say we’re getting a Superior Double room with a view for €136.17 a night, but naturally […]

Jul
07
Presents!
TJ 1 Comment

Ellen just did something that knocked my socks off. She wanted to let me know how much she appreciated the work I did in researching and reserving the cruise, so she got me a present! I’ve been wanting to replace the FRS radios we lost in a move 2 years ago, and she’s been quietly researching FRS and GMRS radios to find the best one. After consulting with my friends, she decided on the Motorola TalkAbout T7200. It’s on the high end, pricewise, but the deal was sealed when she realized we should be able to talk back and forth […]

Jul
07
The documents!
TJ No Comments

Well, we finally got our cruise documents today! The TA sent them by FEDEX, and they got here Thursday while Ellen and I were at the Spanish AF Academy’s graduation ceremony. Although the note said they’d try back Friday before 2, we waited until 4:30 and they never came. Today we were just about to call when they came by at 1:45. Now we have the task of reading through the Shore Excursions book to decide what we’d like to do with the ship. Then we’ll pass that list on to the Pinkards to see what they have to say. […]